


Midnight Mass

by paperandsong



Series: Le roi de Lahore [2]
Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera & Related Fandoms, Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera - Gaston Leroux
Genre: Angst, Christmas, Christmas horror, F/M, Ghosts, Horror, Religious Themes, Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:00:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27819397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperandsong/pseuds/paperandsong
Summary: After a tempestuous first year of marriage traveling abroad, Erik and Christine settle in a little village on the Brittany coast. On their first Christmas together, the reclusive couple cannot come to an agreement on how to spend the darkest night of the year.Inspired by the classic legend of the Mass of the Dead.
Relationships: Christine Daaé/Erik | Phantom of the Opera
Series: Le roi de Lahore [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2041229
Comments: 78
Kudos: 44





	1. Temptation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CleverQuill](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CleverQuill/gifts).



> For Clever Quill who encouraged me to write dark this summer, commenting “...go as dark you're willing to take it. There's plenty of Christmas fluff to read if you need to get back into the light.” Please enjoy this dark little Christmas story.
> 
> Many thanks to shinyfire for reviewing first!
> 
> This story stands on its own, but for those who have read my longfic Le roi de Lahore, this story fits into the first half of Chapter 20, in the first year after Erik and Christine return from Lahore. (It won’t spoil anything for you if you haven’t read it yet.)

A reddish light bled out from the ancient village church. Her eyes strained to see it through the mist. Snow crunched beneath her angry feet as she made her way to the door. He may be damned, she thought to herself, but I am not. He will not drag me down to hell behind him.   
She placed her cold hand on the twisted metal handle. She could almost taste it on her lips, the body and blood, sweeter than any wine with which he had attempted to ply her that very evening. Her husband thought he was so clever; always trying to enchant her! But she had made it past his tricks, through the dark and the snow and this inexplicable mist. For only a moment. All she asked for was a moment to bask in the light of the holy infant.   
She had been married to Erik for over a year and was still a living woman. She had kissed him and she had not died. She had done so much more than kiss him and she was still his living bride.   
“Please, my love. Come with me,” she had pleaded the week before. “Let us give thanks together for our new life here. We have so much to be grateful for.”  
“I cannot, Christine,” he had muttered petulantly. “You know this. I do not go to the village.”  
“It will be dark, my love. No one will -”  
“Enough, Christine!”  
She moved close to him, threading her arm in his. “Accompany me, my husband,” she whispered into his ear, appealing to the tenderness he felt for this title. She moved her hand up his arm to rest on his shoulder. But he stiffened under her touch and distanced himself from her.  
“Do not, then,” she said sharply, ripping herself from his side. “I shall go alone.”  
“You will stay here with me,” he growled at her.  
“I will not!” she yelled, rising to her feet. “You cannot forbid me to go to church. It is my own soul - you have no right to interfere!” She fled the room.   
He had once employed a great amount of trickery to bend Christine to his will. Trickery, as he liked to think of it. But there had been times when he had pushed and dragged her too far and she trembled at the mere brush of his fingertips upon her skin. He could not go back to that. They had journeyed long to reach this day, when he could gently pull his wife into his embrace and she would not shrink back in fear or disgust. He would not ruin it now. He would use only the smallest of tricks to keep her home.

On Christmas Eve, he prepared for her a rich réveillon of roasted chicken and sautéed prawns and Tokay already poured into crystal glasses and candied fruits and a white layer cake that glistened in the candlelight. He set an elegant table, trimmed with cuttings of evergreen and holly that masked that sweet smell of rot that permeated their home. He was most pleased with himself. At eight o’clock he called her to dinner. She emerged from their bedroom primly dressed in a forest green frock with velvet lining. The collar was high, the sleeves long. She had pinned up her hair in a formal and mature style which he did not really appreciate. He preferred her hair long and accessible to him. But still, he was moved by the sight of her. Was it possible that she had grown only more beautiful since he first laid eyes on her? The coastal air had been good for her.  
“Joyeux Noël, my angel,” he grinned, gesturing towards the table. “Come, let us feast together.”  
She frowned in recognition of the menu.   
“It is lovely,” she said, tilting her head. “I will eat when I return from mass.”  
“What is this?”  
“I said, I will eat with you when I return from mass. I am fasting. I intend to take the sacrament tonight as I have not done so since the day we were married. You already know all of this.”  
“You refuse Christmas dinner with your husband?”  
“I do not refuse you,” she said, raising her voice slightly. “As I have told you, I will eat when I return. Nothing could please me more than to dine with my husband tonight.”  
She could see by his twitchy manner how he restrained himself from clearing the table of the sumptuous feast in one angry swipe of his arm. He curled his fingers into fists and uncurled them with thrusts of frustration. She could see how badly he wanted to crash the chicken and prawns and china plates and crystal glasses onto the floor in his rage. To destroy all the beauty that he had created for her, that she did not ask for, that she did not want. She set her jaw firm. She would no longer be intimidated by him and his emotions.   
“When will you leave?” he finally asked in apparent surrender.  
“I will leave at eleven.”  
“There are many hours to pass before eleven, Christine. Come, sit with me before the fire.” He took the two wine glasses from the table and offered her one. “It would not be breaking your fast, would it? Surely, wine is allowed?”  
She smiled weakly at her spouse and took the wine from his hand. He crouched before the fire and stoked it so that the flames hissed and licked up into the darkness of the flue. Then he joined her on their little sofa. He raised his glass to her and let a soft smile escape his ugly mouth. She gently touched her hand to his cold cheek. Worry framed his deep set eyes; he really did not want her to go. She parted her lips to implore him once more to join her, but she thought better of it. Better to keep the warmth between them free of argument.   
They spoke of simple things. They spoke leaning into each other, pressing their arms together, the cushions of the sofa sinking and pushing them closer still. He had done well to bring so much evergreen into the house; she could scarcely smell him. When the sweet wine was finished and the glasses were set aside, he laced his fingers in hers and pressed a knowing thumb into her palm.   
She noted the care with which he had combed back his few strands of hair. His immaculate suit. His nails had grown long again. Tomorrow she would trim them for him.  
He cradled her face in his palms and kissed her lips with proper reverence. How he loved her! Small licks and nips at her little mouth compensated for the thinness of his lips. His fingers floated over her neck, seeking entry under the collar, tickling the skin behind her ears, fingering the emerald earrings that he had once gifted her. He listened for the sharpness of her breath, the rush of her pulse, the hum in her sigh.   
She would be his réveillon, she would be his sacrament. It was Christine that would sustain him. He believed that if he possessed her, he needed nothing else. That he could hate everyone and still love her. That he needed only to love her and she would do all the work of saving him. He greedily believed that he could have everything. He could go on wanting to see the world burn while also wanting to drown himself in her arms and never come up for air. He still refused to choose.  
His fingers hooked locks of her hair and pulled them loose from the pins. They drifted down her back. He delighted in the shivers he felt course through her. In a sudden movement, he took her waist in his hands and pulled her into his lap.   
For a moment she was lost to him. Her arms fell languidly around his neck as she returned his kiss. His tongue hungrily sought hers. He wanted every part of her. He licked at the back of her teeth. He burrowed into the spaces between her cheeks and her gums where the taste of wine still lingered in her flesh.   
She mewled mindlessly as she brushed the skin of her face against his. But as she felt the hardening rush of his own pulse in his lap, she shoved against his chest. She broke away with a gasp. She knew this trick.   
“No, Erik. Not now.”  
He pulled her back and grimly pressed his face against her breast. His arms slithered through her skirts.  
“It could be quick, my angel. Just let me have you, just for a moment.”  
“There is no such thing as just for a moment with you.”  
His fingers spider walked along her thighs. She was deep in his hold; it was a struggle to pull herself to her feet. Not all of her wanted to escape him.  
“Don’t go,” he uttered in desperation, grasping at her skirts as she backed away.   
“I know what you are doing and it will not work,” she said with resolve. Then, with pity, “Can’t you see how I want you to come with me? Do not make me walk there alone, in the dark.”  
“But I cannot, Christine. Do not ask that of me. There would be nothing worse than sitting among all those provincial fools, whispering between their prayers and their hymns, their stares needling my back. No, I will not go. I do not go to the village.”  
“How is it that you have traveled from West to East and back again without fear of what other people think of you. But the moment we return to France -”  
“That is enough, Christine!”   
Despite his harshness, she knelt before him and took his hand in hers.  
“Then let me go alone,” she implored him, her eyes brimming with tears. “There is a need in me that you could not understand.”  
“What need do you have that I could not understand?”  
“The need for God!”  
He grew very stiff, unlacing his fingers from hers.  
“You think you know what Erik believes. But you know nothing.”  
She huffed.  
“Did I not teach you to sing for the angels?”  
She looked away bitterly.  
“Did I not have us married properly in a church?”  
Tears broke loose from her eyes. She gave a sharp intake of air.  
“Did I not confess to you all my sins and allow you to forgive me for them?”  
“Let me go then,” she pleaded softly. “Let me pray for us both.”  
He noted the clock on the mantel. It was now ten.  
“You would pray for me?” he asked.  
“Always!”  
He gave a tired sigh.  
“Let me play for you while you wait?” he said. If the glint in his eyes was of melancholy or mischief she could not say.  
She affectionately brushed his shredded cheek with her fingertips, her thumb tracing the sharp ridge of bone under his eye. Such sad eyes he had. Deep enough to hold all the sadness of the world, even as true happiness knelt at his feet, hands upon his knees.  
“I would like that very much, my husband.”   
He refilled her glass and took his place before the hearth. He did not ask her what she might want to hear as he placed the violin beneath his chin, but instead chose an ardent composition of his own, for his own purposes.   
He did not play Christmas hymns. Christmas was not a favorite time of year for either of them. She still grieved deeply for her father; he did his best to forget his mother. The only joy on this holy night could be what they created between them. And so far, they had sparked very little.  
She gazed up at his lithe figure bending with the force of his music and felt a flutter of warmth rise above her frustration. He was a captivating figure when set in motion. His fingers, which at times seemed to her repulsively arachnid, now danced as gracefully as dragonflies across the strings.  
She turned towards the window. In the daylight she could see all the way to the beach behind their home. Through the current darkness she could see a clear black sky full of stars. Certainly, a holy night.   
She did love him. She even desired him. As his music caressed her, she found herself envious of the violin. She was tempted to give in to his manipulations and stay. But a certain pride also churned within her. After over a year of marriage, after allowing him to lead her into any madness he chose for them, she had finally found within herself the strength to defy him.   
Oh, yes. She had finally defied him. Such a defiant wife she was. The music took a turn from sensuous to somnolent. Her eyes grew heavy, weighted by his craft. The wine sealed them shut. She should have suspected his intentions all along. 

She knew she had been sleeping only because she woke up. The fire was much diminished, though it still hissed and snapped. The lamps had been turned low. Erik and his violin had disappeared. The clock on the mantel, too, was gone. She leapt to her feet. Curse him! She took her black cloak from its hook by the door and fled into the cold night. She feared that if she looked back, he would be there, calling her to return and she would be helpless to resist him. She pulled up her hood against the night.


	2. Sacrament

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Poor Christine. All she wanted was to go to church.

A thick mist had rolled in from the sea, obscuring the stars and blanketing the road to the village. She had never been to the village. Each time she had attempted it, Erik had found a way to stop her. Neither had she been to the village church; she was not even certain there would be a Midnight Mass. She had placed all her hope on the shared traditions of all such provincial villages.   
She was relieved to find the church illuminated from within. It gave her hope that she was not too late. At the very least, she might catch the closing hymn. And she was so cold! Her feet were already numb. She was so eager for warmth. She reached out and grasped the metal handle, but hesitated to pull it open. She had not so much as looked upon another person’s face in all the time she had lived here. Erik had kept her so very close to him in all these months. Suddenly, she was filled with doubt. Did she even want to look upon the faces of strangers tonight?  
She swung the old door open with more force than she had meant to. It creaked loudly. She made an apologetic expression, but not one head turned to look at her. To her surprise, the church was quite full. Why, she was not late at all. It seemed as if mass had not yet begun.   
She kneeled and solemnly genuflected before taking her place in a pew at the very back. All other heads were bowed in meditation while they waited for the priest to arrive. The faint and sepulchral scent of frankincense and myrrh wafted on the cold draft that moved through the dimly lit space. She did not find the warmth she had been seeking.  
For a moment she was overcome with emotion. She had missed God. Why had he ever left her? She covered her eyes with her hands, so as not to be seen weeping. She did not see the figure next to her move closer. She did not see the figure’s hand reach out until it was upon her. She lifted her eyes from prayer.  
“Maman?” she asked in wonder. The old woman’s face was as kind as it had ever been. But Christine’s heart sank as she remembered that Maman Valerius was most certainly dead. “But how are you here?”  
“I do not know, my child. But I have been waiting for you. I am so happy you have found me!”  
“I must be dreaming,” Christine whispered. She relaxed at this idea. “But what a lovely dream, to see you again.”  
“No, my dear. I do not believe you are dreaming. Look at your boots - they are covered in mud!”  
Poor Maman. The logic of dreams confused her, didn’t it? How could mud on boots prove she was awake and not dreaming? Christine did not argue. She pinched herself - and it did hurt. But still, she preferred to believe she was dreaming. Anything good could happen in a dream.  
“Is my father here?” Her eyes searched desperately among the shrouded congregants.  
“No, child. Your father is in heaven.”  
“Are you not also in heaven?” she asked with a chill in her heart. For if Maman Valerius could not find entry into heaven, what hope could anyone have?  
“I was made to wait - to deliver a message to you.”  
“Was it a message from my father?”   
“I cannot remember. I shall have to think very hard to remember it.”   
Poor Maman, tormented by dementia, even in death.  
“But you are certain Papa is not also here?”  
“Now child, how could he send the Angel of Music to you if he were not already in heaven?”  
“Oh,” she sighed. “Let us not speak of that.”  
“What happened to your good genius, Christine?”  
“Maman, I married him.”  
The apparition smiled.  
“But that is wonderful to hear! Oh, you must be very happy. Are you very happy, my child?”  
“Of course,” she murmured sadly. Was she really so unhappy though? She had come to love him, after all. But he was such a difficult man to love! He made even simple things so hard. She shook these thoughts from her head. She was there to pray for her spouse, not to lament their marriage. “We are so very happy.”  
The ghost took her hand.   
“It brings me great joy to hear it. I have missed you so much, Christine.”  
“I have missed you too. But where have you been all this time, Maman? Can’t you tell me?”  
“Child,” she shook her head sadly. “I do not know.”  
Just then, the shrouded priest and his acolytes padded soundlessly down the aisle. There was no music. She bowed her head in reverence as they passed by.  
“In nómine Patris…”  
Christine felt a strange wind pass through the church. The congregation did not seem to respond appropriately to the priest’s words.   
“Maman, you must remember your message for me,” Christine whispered between prayers and silence. She shivered. The church was really no warmer than the darkness outside.  
“I do try, my child. But my mind has been so clouded for so long. It must have been quite important though, to be held back as I have been. I do so wish to see my husband - and your father, of course. I know that they are waiting for me.”  
“Most certainly they are.”  
Dream mass was as long as waking mass. The priest had a droning voice that nearly put her to sleep. To fall asleep within a dream - the thought made Christine smile to herself. How strange that would be. I must ask Erik if he has ever - oh, Erik. She felt his absence acutely. If he were next to her, she would lean her head on his shoulder and close her eyes. She was so, so sleepy. And hungry too. She wished she were still at home sitting next to him by the fire. She wished that she had eaten a wing of the chicken he had prepared for her. How could she have been so ungrateful?  
It was time to walk up to the altar to receive the sacrament. She was well aware that she had not confessed to a priest in a very long time. She hoped that this priest was too old to notice or to care. In her heart, she knew that she had never been more ready to receive the Lord’s body and blood than that night. She yearned for it.   
And hadn’t she performed the sacrament of confession already? She remembered cradling her husband in her arms and confessing all her sins against him. And he had forgiven them all. But she had omitted one, hadn’t she? She had not loved him with her whole heart. Not really. Though she had forgiven him everything he had done to her, she held onto the crumbs of resentment. She must confess to herself that there were days when she wondered what her life might be now if he had never...  
She pushed the thought from her mind. She fervently whispered her mea culpas. She loved him. She loved him. She really did love him.   
She stood and turned to help Maman Valerius to her feet. She was quite fragile for a ghost. They held hands as they made their way to the altar, shuffling their feet behind the few others who had come forward. When it was Christine’s turn at the altar, she looked up at the priest with eager lips and let out a small cry.   
Now she was certain she was dreaming. The fingers that held out the flesh of the Lord were devoid of any flesh at all. Mere bones presented the sacrament to her. His eyes were hollow and dead, his regal vestments faded and moth-eaten. He was as ugly as her husband. By the internal logic of this dream, Christine understood he had been dead for many years, while the acolytes on either side of him were much younger. One had even retained his nose as the worms had not yet reached it.   
But what kind of dream was this that Midnight Mass should be filled with the dead? Who else prayed here tonight - the village ancestors? Why would the dead need to attend mass - weren’t the faithful already in heaven? Weren’t the sinners in hell? Were there really so many souls in purgatory - so many caught between death and death?   
She was not even disappointed. At the very least, she could receive the sacrament in her dream and it would be good enough, wouldn’t it? The Lord knew her heart and how open it was to him this night.  
Christine bowed her head as she received the flesh in her palms. Her heartbeat quickened as she lifted it to her open mouth. As she had been taught as a child, she swallowed it whole, not letting the body of Christ linger too long on her tongue. When the chalice was offered, she took hold of it, to help guide it to her lips. Her mouth watered with the expectation that sweet wine would soon flood her mouth. But this wine was not sweet. It was warm and thick and did not go down easily. She gagged, pressing her lips together and swallowing hard.   
She turned and looked out at the congregation. She saw in that crowded space a sea of faces looking intently upon her. As if they knew her, As if they had been waiting for her.   
There, in the very first row, side by side, sat Joseph Buquet and Philippe de Chagny. They had retained their noses, thus far, but they looked in very poor health.   
“Oh, Christine, you should not be here. I have remembered my message.”  
“What is it, Maman?”   
“Run away!”

These were not the ghosts of villagers, the bones of old Bretons. She looked out at the angry skulls that filled the church now and saw all the hate of the world staring back at her. A voice from the back shouted out at her in a language she recognized as Farsi. Soon other voices rose out of the darkness and cursed her in other tongues she did not know, though she understood them all the same. Whether in Romany or Punjabi or Russian or Farsi or Vietnamese or Turkish, their vile words pierced her chest as if they were arrows made of lead.   
“Assassin’s whore!”  
“There goes the bitch of death!”  
“You must run, Christine!” Maman Valerius pushed her forward. The only way out was back the way she had come. Down the aisle, past all those that were waiting for her. Back towards the cold and dark outside.   
She lowered her head and glided quickly across the stone floor. The figures struck at her and pulled at her sleeves as she passed them by.  
“But you must run, child!”  
Her feet darted towards the door, but she was caught by the cloak tied at her neck. She turned to see both Buquet and de Chagny clutching the hem of the garment in their dead hands, using it to reel her closer to them. She could see the burning wound in Buquet’s neck, the bluish bloat of de Chagny’s drowned face.   
“Fuck you, Daaé,” Buquet spat at her. “Complicit little tart!”  
“Let me go!”  
“You think you can escape?” Philippe mocked her. “Little opera wench, there is nowhere you can hide from us - you reek of him. We cannot stay long tonight. But we could take you with us. Come, mademoiselle. You already have one foot in his grave of a bed. Let us make you a true bride of Death.”  
“God help me!” she implored.   
She looked up at the altar where the priest and the acolytes and Maman Valerius stood frozen, looking on at the scene in feeble dismay.  
“Help me!”  
Figures stepped out into the aisle both before her and behind her. She could see by their dress that they had come from both near and far to haunt her. And she knew, without being told by anyone, that each of these tormented souls had died at the hands of her Erik.   
She did not surrender. She pulled against the greedy claws that grasped her cloak and waded through the others who stood in her way, pushing them aside and throwing their curses back in their faces. They ripped the hem of her dress to shreds.   
Finally, one dove before her feet and threw its rapacious arms around her legs. She fell to the stone floor and the weight of Erik’s sins came crashing over her. Their hands were everywhere; in her hair, under her skirts, down her chest. She curled her head to her knees and covered her ears with her arms.   
What had they done wrong? Was her love not enough to redeem him then? It had never been enough, had it? She understood through the terror all around her that her husband had not fully repented for his crimes after all. And now she was made to suffer for it. But still, she could not hate him.  
“God deliver me!”   
  
From the back of the church screamed a cacophony of the most wretched music she had ever heard. She cringed under the weight of the organ's voice. At once the dead hands lifted from her body. She looked up to see those skeletal figures bent over in pain, holding the holes of their ears with the bones of their hands, helpless to block the sound.   
A melody unfolded itself from the wretchedness. It commanded them to make way for her. She pulled herself from the floor. She felt the pull on her cloak behind her go slack. She did not look back to see it for herself. The music continued and the figures writhed on the floor beneath her. She lifted her ruined skirts to step over them as she fled. It continued to hold them at bay until she shut the church door behind her. Then it again turned to threatening discord.   
“Run, Christine!” she could hear Maman Valerius whisper from very far away.  
She pulled her cloak around her and again ran off into the mist covered night. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Let me know what you think of the story so far. Feedback is always appreciated!


	3. Confession

“Erik!” she called out as she burst through the front door. She expected him to be there, waiting anxiously for her return. She expected that he might even be angry with her for leaving. She would gladly take his anger. She would beg his forgiveness. As she ran home through the snow and mist, she had thought of nothing other than folding herself into his embrace. Only he could heal her terror.   
“Erik! Where are you?” she cried.   
She slammed and locked the door behind her. But what good would a locked door be against an army of vengeful spirits? The dark house was empty. The food was still on the table, just as it had been when she left. The fire was cold. He was not by the hearth nor in their bedroom nor in the root cellar where he often went to sulk.   
“Erik,” she sobbed into her hands. Maybe, just maybe he was out on the beach. He spent much time there, usually at dusk and sometimes at night. Perhaps, in his anger, he had gone there to meditate on what an ungrateful wife she was.   
She ran out onto the dunes. Not a cloud, not a breath of mist to mar the radiant light of the stars. The wind was strong and cold against her ears. Streams of tears pricked and froze on her skin. She searched in vain for the preternatural glow of his eyes somewhere between the stretch of sand and endless black ocean.  
“Erik!” she called out against the roar of the wind and waves. “Erik, my love!”  
But he was nowhere.   
  
What if those ghouls had followed her home? There was nowhere for her to hide - they had told her so. There was no way to wash herself of Erik; she could only drown herself more deeply in his embrace.   
But were they really ghouls and demons? Were they not simply the tormented souls of men? If any others were as innocent as Buquet and de Chagny, she did not know. But she dropped to her knees in the sand and prayed for them all the same, that they might find release on this holy night and cease torturing her. She pressed her forehead to the sand. Hear my prayer, she whispered.  
She dragged herself home. She stood before the cold hearth and took off her soaked and torn cloak. She tossed it to the floor and curled up on the little sofa. She put her head in her hands for another round of weeping.   
“Erik,” she cried softly. “Where are you?”  
She was nearly asleep when she felt his long fingers wrap themselves around her upper arms.  
“I am here, my love. Why are you crying?”  
“Where have you been!”  
“I have been here.”   
“No, no. I came home and you were not here. I could not find you. Oh, Erik! It was the most awful thing - !”  
“Hush, my Christine. You have had a bad dream.”  
“No! It wasn’t a dream. It was -”  
“Hush,” he said again, caressing the crown of her head with his fingertips. “If you tell me, you will only relive it. Push it from your mind.”  
“I have been asleep the whole time?”  
“Yes, my love. You have been sleeping right here, by the fire.”  
“No, no, no,” she shook her head. She looked up at him, his eyes shining in the darkness. “Erik, why are you wearing your mask?”  
He reached up to touch his face, as if he had not known it was there.   
“I went outside.”  
“But you do not wear your mask on the beach. And I know you were not on the beach.”  
“I went for a walk on the road.”  
“Take it off.”  
He complied. She shook her head.  
“You are lying. And it wasn’t a dream.”  
He bent down to kiss her. She broke away.  
“You do not know my dreams.”  
He slid his hand behind her head and more forcefully pulled her mouth to his. He lifted her to her feet.   
“You tremble, Christine.”  
“I am afraid!”  
“Hush, you do not need to be afraid when I am here.”  
She buried her face in his chest. He pressed her closer to him. Oh, how it was delicious when she was frightened of anything other than him.  
“I am cold. Take me to bed,” she whispered. She leaned into him. Now that she was safe, her strength was quickly leaving her. He cradled her in his arms and lifted her feet from the ground.

  
He helped her shed the ruined frock. He unlaced her muddied boots. He dressed her in a clean cotton chemise and laid her gently on the bed. He delicately rolled down each of her stockings, fingers lingering too long on the soft flesh of her thighs before carefully sliding her frozen feet under the sheets. He pulled the covers up to her chin and tucked them tightly around her in an effort to trap the warmth inside. He brushed the hair out of her face and pressed a kiss to her forehead. Before he could lean back, her arms escaped the blankets and caught his neck in an embrace.   
“Don’t leave,” she whispered. “Forgive me.”  
“Forgive you?” he laughed gently. “What could you have done that I must forgive you?”  
“I should have eaten with you,” she mumbled sleepily. “You try so hard to make me happy. I should have -”  
“Hush, Christine.”  
“I should have - I wanted to - I - ,”  
“Hush, my love.”  
“Forgive me,” she repeated, pulling on his neck and making the softest of sounds. “I should love you harder. Until it hurts. To the bones.”  
“How? How do you want me to forgive you?”  
Her fingers slipped from the back of his neck to the corners of his jaw. She pulled him gently to her lips. Ah, she wanted the forgiveness only he could give her. He tore the blankets away.  
He feasted on her. He filled his mouth with the plush flesh of her, until her hardened nipple brushed the back of his throat. He gagged himself on her. He broke away and pulled the hem of the chemise over her head. All of her, he would consume every piece of her, every drop of her. Her honey, her milk, her blood. There was no part of her he did not want in his mouth.  
He laid down next to her and beheld the dimly lit sight of her. She tugged at the cuff of his jacket. She too wanted all of him. He pulled it off.   
“Christine,” he hissed with delight, running his hands along the slope from her breasts to her hips.  
“Forgive me,” she implored, just once more, pushing him down onto his back, covering his frame with hers.   
“My perfect love, there is nothing to forgive. Ah! Christine, you have made me so happy already.”  
She sat upon him, moving herself back along his legs so that the sharp points of his hips did not dig too deeply into the soft fat of her inner thighs. Her fingers found their way into his trousers. She opened him up and took him into her little hands.  
“You really do love me, don’t you?” he whispered, gazing up at her naked form, glowing brightly in the gray light of dawn.   
“It is unbearable how I love you,” she declared.  
He pulled at her hips, aligning her over himself. Her head fell back with a sigh as he pulled her down onto him. He felt her shudder with joy. She pulled the blanket over her shoulders and crawled forward, keeping her body close to his, letting her breasts brush lightly against his sunken chest as he thrust up slowly, sweetly, deeply. She kept the blanket tented around them, for the room was very cold. She felt light in his arms, as if she were floating over him, bound to him only by love and not at all by gravity. She pushed against him in her own rhythm, a counter melody to his.   
She whispered a litany to him in the unintelligible vocabulary of pleasure,   
“ _I love you my angel, I love you, I love you, don’t stop, please don’t stop._ ”  
And he mumbled his own commandments,   
“ _No, no, no, I will never stop. You must never leave me, my angel. Never leave me again. Never, never, never._ ”  
“ _Never, I never_ -” Her chain of mindless murmuring was broken. “But I didn’t - I didn’t leave you.”   
“Hush,” he said, pulling her mouth into his rotten kiss. Her mouth broke away as she abruptly sat up.  
“Why did you say ‘again’?” she demanded. “I did not leave you. It was all a dream. As you said.”   
He too sat up and pressed her against his chest as he rolled her onto her back. His head hung over hers as his thrusts became impassioned with the mission of making her forget. Her feet were still cold and numb; icy where he planted them against his shoulders. She could have kissed her own knees. He kissed them for her. He thrust passed all her questions and her words dissolved into song.  
“ _I forgive you, Christine. I forgive you, I forgive you everything!_ ”  
  
The white light of Christmas morning streamed into their room. It was so bright he had to cover his eyes with his hands. He stood to pull the curtains more tightly across their window, but he stopped to regard his wife sleeping soundly. How her hair fanned wildly across their mattress. He smiled. They were his fingers that had tangled her hair so.   
She was so sweet. Did she really pray for him? No one else had ever prayed for him. No one else had ever wanted to save him. Many had cursed him, many had wished for him to die, tearing at his face with their claws as he pulled his weighted cord taut around their necks. Of the multitudes that had hated him, he needed only one to love him.   
He winced and passed his hand over his face. He remembered all their dying faces. Their memory had once fortified him. His power over them had filled him with a special delight. He relished their terror. He savored their pleas for mercy. But he would let all of that go now. She had tried to tell him before; he must choose. He wasn’t allowed to take pleasure in both her love and his past. But he had been a poor husband. In his heart, he had held onto the crumbs of joy that death had once brought him. Death had once been his richest talent, his strictest master.   
But Death was not his friend. He must learn that.   
He had meant to surprise her. He had planned to slip into the back of the church and lurk in the shadows. To menace or to please, he was not sure. She would think he was angry with her, for her defiance. But if he dared to sit next to her like a proper husband, then she would know how much he really adored her.   
When he first entered the sanctuary, he saw the ancient pipe organ and found it made the perfect hiding place. He could see by the cobwebs on the keys that no one would disturb him there. He looked out onto the mass of bowing, shrouded heads. He saw her there, in the very back, quite close to him. Who was that woman who leaned into his wife so intimately, as if they were family? He could not tell.  
As the mass progressed he felt it too, that cold wind that blew through the cavernous room. He sensed the disharmony of the voices, their bewildered responses to the priest’s prayers. This could not be Midnight Mass. It was far too long past midnight.  
And when those tormented souls threw back their hoods and revealed their corpse-faces, he was struck in the heart with a horror previously unknown to him. For the first time, he could see before him the consequences of his actions. Only as they pounced upon the thing most precious to him in life, could he then see how Death had truly deceived him. How Death had never been his friend.

He was tempted to disturb her. But it had been a long night; she deserved to rest. He gently touched her lips, causing them to instinctively purse into little kisses against his fingertips.   
He had work to do. He gathered the remains of the shredded green dress and threw it down into the root cellar. There was no salvaging it; he would dispose of it later. He took her boots and cleaned off the mud as best he could and set them with her other shoes. It had been a dream. Only a frightful dream. She need never worry herself with those ghastly images ever again.  
He threw out the prawns and the chicken - they had spoiled overnight. But he took the white cake and cut a few slices while brewing tea. He laid them on a china plate embellished with pink roses. He lit a fire. He would prepare a lovely Christmas breakfast for her.  
At last she emerged from their bedroom wearing a green robe of quilted Punjabi silk over the thin white chemise. Her loose and matted hair cascaded over her shoulders in the most charming way. She met his eyes with a dreamy smile. She moved through the room like an angel through the clouds. She approached him and startled him with a sweet embrace around his waist. She pressed her head against his chest and sighed. Had he made her happy at last? Satisfied her, sated her, filled her?   
She moved to stand at the hearth, putting out her hands to catch the heat of the flames. He placed the tea and cake on a tray to bring to her. He found her standing with her back to him, looking down at something in her hands.   
“Christine,” he called.  
She did not turn around.   
“Christine?”  
He heard a sniffle. Was she crying?   
“You are such a liar!”  
She turned around and thrust out her cloak for him to see. It was in tatters.   
“You want me to believe I am mad! It wasn’t a dream! I knew it wasn’t! I knew it, I know my own mind, don’t I?”  
“What is this?” He pretended not to know.  
“Look at it!” she threw it in his face. “Shredded by the hands of your own victims! You murderer! You goddamn liar!”  
He set the tray down with trembling hands.  
“ _No, no, no, my love…_ ”  
She put her hands to her temples, her eyes wild and unseeing.  
“Why do they haunt us still? What are we doing wrong? I thought we had made peace with God?”  
She sobbed into her hands. He fell to his knees before her. His arms slipped under the green robe and around her waist. He pulled her close to his face. He could smell himself on her. He pressed his mouth to her belly and murmured,  
“It was just a dream, Christine. A terrible dream.”  
“Liar,” she hissed weakly. She was so angry. But she did not push him away.  
“I promise you. I promise you will never have that dream again.”  
“How can you make such a promise? You do not dictate my dreams. You arrogant man!”  
She ran her fingers over his head and pressed him closer to her. He resettled his arms around her hips in a tighter embrace.  
“They will never haunt you again.”  
“How could you know what haunts me?”

_Because I am what haunts you, Christine._  
 _You, who deserve to dream of sleeping on a bed of clouds beneath the stars. It is I, your sinful husband who infects your dreams and turns them into bitter nightmares. But if my music could save you from their demon-clutches, it could also command them to finally depart us forever. I give them up for you. I sacrifice them for you. No longer shall I take pleasure in the memory of their deaths. Never again shall I sit and conjure up the ghost-touch of their necks at my fingertips; for so long, the only skin I was ever allowed to caress. I played the most celestial music for them, so that they might find their way out of the purgatory of rancor and find the path to heaven at last. They are all gone now, my love. It was my music that sent them on their way. Believe in me; they shall never haunt you again._  
 _Only I am allowed to haunt you now._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed! Thank you for reading. Let me know what you thought - feedback is golden.
> 
> I hope everyone has a healthy and safe holiday season!


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